Marks Wedding

My little brother Mark got married last Friday in Idaho Falls. I can't believe he's old enough to be married, it makes me feel old. They had great weather, which is suprising for southeastern Idaho in October, and it was pretty warm.

My kids outside the temple waiting for Mark and Jen to come out. They were happy at first. Then they got a little bored....
Then they were were! Jen looked so pretty, I loved her dress, it was all lace and she had cute cowboy boots on with it. The temple has done some remodeling and added some gardens outside so they had a lot of places to take pictures, despite the construction that was ongoing outside the temple. Mark and Jen did a lot of their picture taking in the morning before the sealing so we just mostly had family pictures left, which made it pretty quick.
The best part about Mark getting married was getting to see all my siblings at the same time for a few days. Since my sister lives in Wisconsin and Aaron lives in Texas and Paul in Boise, this doesn't happen very often. It was so nice to be able to go eat together and just hang out. My sister especially loved it since her and her husband were able to leave their 4 kids back in Wisconsin with her in-laws for a few days. Lucy had to wake up from her nap to come to the wedding and was insistent on bringing her stuffed bunny with her to the temple. She was having lots of fun with it, making it hop, feeding it bark, and trying to ride it down the hill.That is, until we told her she couldn't have it in the pictures with her. Yes, trying to reason with a cranky 2 1/2 year old doesn't work too well. Especially when its Lucy.They had a nice luncheon/reception afterwards in Rexberg and had this cute cake there. Their official wedding cake will be at their reception in Jen's hometown in Montana but they had this fun Fall themed one to eat. It was so cute!
And Isak really loved the way the cake tasted as well.

My brother Mark got married last week and we got the chance to see a lot of family. Above is Lucy with her cousin Conner helping Stephanie and I make cookies. We stayed with them on our way down to Twin Falls and on the way back.
My brother Aaron came up from Texas and Isak was loving all the attention he got from him and followed him everywhere. I was so grateful to Aaron for the hours of entertainment he provided for Isak. I just wish he lived closer so that we could see him more!
We also had the opportunity to visit the visitor's center at the temple in Idaho Falls and had a wonderful time. They have a touch screen computer with interactive games for kids and Isak and Lucy had a lot of fun with it. There was a beautiful exhibit of sculptures from the life of Christ on display that have been on tour around the country.

We picked about 15 pumpkins out of our backyard this year. We learned that if we would've snipped some off earlier, we could have gotten some really big ones. But we still had fun with the ones we collected. Isak was so excited to carve them and somehow I never got a picture of him with the finished pumpkin. Sadly, it is now rotting on my front porch but it was a lot of fun for the 2 weeks we had it!Isak's class went to the pumpkin patch last week for preschool and they could pick any pumpkin they wanted for $1. He picked out the largest pumpkin he could find, which was huge, and spent the rest of the time jumping off the hay bales. My kids were being too wiggly for pictures but Isak was interested in seeing how many pumpkins tall he was by this sign. My sweet Lucy sleeping with her menegarie of animals. I love how she says her prayers at night. She will repeat them in jibberish back to us with an occasional recognizable word but will say "amen!" very loudly at the end.
Isak takes lots of interesting pictures during the day if I don't hide the camera well enough. Most of them are deleted as they are fuzzy or random pictures of my foot or Lucy's hair. This was actually a pretty clear one he took last week, he's getting better! This also documents Lucy's current obsession with "Old Mcdonald had a farm" videos on youtube. Also why I hide my phone from her during the day as she is in love with children's music videos and memorizes the songs, only to sing them repeatedly throughout the day. It is very entertaining.

Tonight we had some friends over and Isak enjoyed playing dress-up with their little girl. Luckily she thinks spiderman is as cool as Isak does. Sadly (gladly?), I cannot say the same for Isak and princess dresses.Isak has officially stopped taking naps. I knew it would happen, he's been 4 since May and I have really been lucky with how long he has lasted. However, it has been a rough transition for both of us. I am used to being able to sleep for an hour if I need to, which with pregnancy I usually do, and Isak gets tired early in the evening. I try to have "quiet" time for him but he doesn't grasp the concept of doing things by himself easily so usually I am involved with his quiet time. Which is fine, I just really need a break some days and don't get one anymore. We are spending lots of quality time together...lots of candyland, playdough, computer games, bad guy fighting, puzzles, and reading books. We did these things before, now we just do them when Lucy is sleeping and he really loves not having his sister there to interrupt his time with mom. With number 3 coming soon and Isak starting kindergarten next fall, I know I just need to take a deep breath and enjoy this time with him at home. That's just easier some days than others!
My mom and I canned applesauce this weekend, 26 quarts, it should last a while. I love it for breakfast with cottage cheese and I figure I will have a baby eating lots of the stuff come this summer.
We had some rainy days this week, I think fall has officially arrived. So the kids and I made a giant fort in our front room. It was huge!Lucy loved it as well. Someone needs to tell her that its now October because she keeps asking to wear her swimsuit and go in the "swimin pool!".Today I even put her in it to make her happy but instead caused a complete meltdown. She was also very loud during church today, singing "Old mcdonald had a farm" repeatedly and tracking down innocent babies and going "Oh hey, its a babies!" then patting them on the head. The lady in front of us said she was having flashbacks of Kevin's little sister during church. I would like to point out that all of our kid's crazy behavior comes from his side.....

Isak's soccer has one more week. To say the least, it has been entertaining. Isak isn't so much focused on following the ball as he is on doing summersaults, twirling, picking grass, and trying to wrestle down his teammates. But he is only 4 and he is having fun, I think I will try wrestling for him next fall and see how he does with that.

We had a very busy weekend but Sunday morning was wonderful. Kevin let me sleep in till 830 since I worked the evening before, then I got up and made breakfast and scones. We sat around in our pajamas and watched conference.

Lucy especially enjoyed herself. I let her hair go crazy, she got to run around with all her puppets, and Kevin was nice enough to let the kids jump on him like a jungle gym. On second thought, maybe watching conference was more fun for me than Kevin.....

We found an exercise band and the kids were loving playing with it tonight. I don't know why even buy them actual toys.

Isak was having Kevin stretch it across the living room down the hallway then letting it snap. They thought this was the greatest game ever.

Lucy and Isak love this show called zooboomafoo on PBS. It talks about different animals and their habitats. Lucy gets particularly excited, as you can tell. Listen closely, I swear she is saying "horse" and well, not something else.

BABY UPDATE

I was going to post a picture of my preggo self but just couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe next week. I am about 25 weeks and carrying this baby lower than the other 2. I am guessing this is why I have been so uncomfortable so early on in this pregnancy. Either that or the 33lb 2 year old that still thinks she needs to be carried and picked up all the time. Or more likely is that fact that I am getting older, this is my 3rd pregnancy, and my body is just tired. I have been able to keep running which I think has helped, although my belly has started hitting the bar on the treadmill so I might have to revise my form. We have had 2 ultrasounds and the baby looks great. We decided to not find out the gender since the delivery with Lucy was so fun not knowing. Isak has decided if its a boy to name it pickles and if its a girl, strawberry. Kevin is convinced its a girl, and I have been wrong every time so I am not going to guess. But if it is a girl and she is like Lucy, Kevin gets to deal with her when she's 16. And he gets to brush out her hair.